Dream Walk: Luddite Flame

Day Books:16-Jun-96 (Fri) - Freeman Lake

I was really optimistic about the World Wide Web being the 21st Century equivalent of Rural Electrification, but to my mounting horror it's just a repeat of the CB Radio craze of the 1970s. <sigh!>

In the midst of this, I've discovered a Luddite attitude that is totally counterproductive to the Information Revolution -- this "NO NETSCAPE" thing frightens me. Mosaic is free, and it's like a bicycle. Netscape costs money, but it's like a motorcycle. You get what you pay for.

Now, I have some sympathy for the Free Software Foundation and its ideals, but I've been a professional software engineer for over twenty years now, and I have embraced the shareware paradigm as a Rational Capitalist (hey, I grew up on Ayn Rand), and have found that the Free Market offers some Great Values.

There's something to be said for pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator, but there are limits, and the growth of the WWW can be retarded by waiting for people to "catch up" instead of encouraging them. That's why I have a URL for Netscape on my HomeBoy Page, so that those who don't have it can get it.

I'm trying to be proactive about this, but I also know -- "If they can't read it, they won't come back". I'm starting to use the Microsoft Internet Assistant (IA) for Word 1.0 for HTML authoring, and it is "retarded" with regards to HTML 3.0, but that won't last forever. I'll make some "Forest Gump" Web pages, and will probably use the "Notscape-Certified" logo on them, but I won't use it often, and not for very long.

For more opinions on this fascinating flame, visit Nibble's or read my thoughts on The Myth of the Information Revolution.

<Flame Off!> -=DAH=- 16-Jun-95

04-09-96 01:15 - Upgrade time … I installed Windows 95 a few weeks ago, and just upgraded to Word for Win95, so I have the new version of Microsoft's IA.

Last update: 09-Apr-96 by DAHarrod <Who is this Dennette person?>